French Literature

On a crowded bus at midday, Raymond Queneau observes one man accusing another of jostling him deliberately. When a seat is vacated, the first man appropriates it. Later, in another part of town, Queneau sees the man being advised by a friend to sew...
By: Raymond Queneau

Beautiful Emma Rouault yearns for the life of wealth, passion and romance she has encountered in popular sentimental fiction, and when her doctor, the well-meaning but awkward and unremarkable Charles Bovary, begins to pay her attention, she...
By: Gustave Flaubert

During the German advance through Belgium into France in 1940, Captain de Reixach is shot dead by a sniper. Three witnesses, involved with him during his lifetime in different capacities – a distant relative, an orderly and a jockey who had an...
By: Claude Simon

First published in 1938, The Theatre and Its Double is a collection of essays detailing Antonin Artaud’s radical theories on drama, which he saw as being stifled by conservatism and lack of experimentation. It contains the famous manifestos of the...
By: Antonin Artaud

After a failed attempt on his life by an unknown terrorist cell, Professor Daniel Dupont decides to fake his own death with the help of Doctor Juard. The government authorities, believing that the attack is part of a series of political...
By: Alain Robbe-Grillet

In contrast with the epic scope of the Rougon-Macquart novels, Zola’s short stories are concerned with the everyday aspects of human existence and the interests of ordinary people. From the cruel irony of ‘Captain Burle’ to the Rabelaisian...
By: Emile Zola

Moderato Cantabile is a carefully woven tapestry of emotion that begins with a jealous lover murdering the woman he loves. Fascinated by the crime, Anne returns several times to the bistro where it took place, drinking through the afternoon with the...
By: Marguerite Duras

Based, like the earlier Impressions of Africa , on uniquely eccentric principles of composition, this book invites the reader to enter a world which in its innocence and extravagance is unlike anything in the literature of the twentieth century....
By: Raymond Roussel

In his most famous and perhaps most typical work, Robbe-Grillet explores his principle preoccupation, the meaning of reality. The novel is set on a tropical banana plantation and the action is seen through the eyes of a narrator who never appears in...
By: Alain Robbe-Grillet